Swede "planned suicide attack"

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Police in Sarajevo have said that the Swede held in the city on terror charges was to be a suicide bomber. On Thursday Danish police arrested four men who they suspect were to have helped him.

"In the apartment where he lived, a videotape was found on which the Swede and the other guy prayed to Allah for forgiveness, because they were going to blow themselves up," said journalist Mirsad Fasic at the Sarajevo paper, Slobodan Bosna.

In its latest edition the paper, which says it has sources within the police, wrote that the Swede and the Turkish man who is also being held had lived in Sarajevo for a month and had moved between three apartments.

As well as the video, police are said to have discovered 30 kilos of explosives, a belt for carrying out a suicide attack and weapons in a raid.

The target for the attack is unknown.

The Bosnian who rented out the last apartment to the men was also arrested a week ago but has now been released and is no longer suspected of involvement.

The 18 year old Swede comes from a town in the west of Sweden, where he has been registered since the summer. He is thought to have been born in Serbia and moved to Sweden with his parents at the beginning of the 1990s.

Slobodan Bosna reported that it was Sweden's security police, Säpo, which tipped off their Bosnian counterparts. So far Säpo has only confirmed that an 18 year old Swede is in jail in Bosnia.

"Other than that we have no comment," said information officer Jacob Larsson, who refused to say if there has been an investigation in Sweden into the 18 year old or if he has had contact with the suspected terrorists, all aged between 16 and 20, in Denmark. One of those is a Danish citizen and three come from unspecified countries in the Middle East.

"It is my firm belief that there is strong evidence that they were in the process of planning an act of terrorism," said police chief Jörn Bro in Glostrum, Denmark, to the news agency Ritzau.

According to the police, the terror attack was to take place "somewhere in Europe and in the near future". Part of the material seized indicated that it was to be a suicide attack.

The tip-off to Danish police came from Bosnia and Jörn Bro said there is a close link between the jailed Swede and the four in Denmark.

After having initially declined to meet representatives of the Swedish embassy in Sarajevo, the 18 year old met Consular officials on Wednesday. However, the allegations against him were not discussed.

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